Is Mental Illness a Myth? Thomas Szasz Revisited with Jeff Ball, PhD || WNMT

Loyola Marymount University's Department of Psychology presents a 7 Part Interview and Q&A Series called "Wednesday Night with a Master Therapist"

4/24: Is Mental Illness a Myth? Thomas Szasz Revisited with Jeff Ball, PhD

In the sixth segment of the Master Therapist series, LMU Psychology Professor, Richard Gilbert, interviews Dr. Jeffrey Ball, Co-founder, CEO, and Director of PCH Treatment Center a program located in West LA and Pasadena that treats clients struggling with various mental health issues, including anxiety, depression, OCD, and trauma. The program emphasizes a healthy living approach (including attention to diet, sleeping patterns, and exercise), as well as experiential therapies and a myriad of standard therapeutic practices, including but not limited to, Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, Somatic and Creative therapies, Cognitive and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, and Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT).

Dr. Ball received his PhD in Clinical Psychology at UCLA where he conducted research on developmental disabilities, projective processes in marital relationships, and an integrative treatment model for bipolar disorder. Dr. Ball trained clinically in a psychoanalytic model focusing on personality and mood issues, including depression and bipolar disorder. He has taught a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses at UCLA and USC and has been on the UCLA Clinical Faculty for many years.

Dr. Ball will discuss concerns about the current diagnostic classification and medicalization of psychological issues and present an alternative perspective emphasizing a continuum of methods of coping and adaptation.

Hosted by Richard Gilbert, PhD, Professor of Psychology, Loyola Marymount University
and with Students in Introduction to Clinical Psychology.

Produced by LMU's Department of Psychology and Megan Lau, Ukkei Entertainment, LMU'18.

[adolfosilva]

I wish more people would watch this talk. It's really a big problem. The trifecta of patients, pharmaceutical industry and psychiatrists - all adopting the biochemical model, an unproven model.

[kimlec]

Emotional distress, if severe enough, disables thinking so you can stop thinking about hurting yourself. Crazy is sometimes more accepted than depressed in some families. It depends if you were allowed to tell the truth or felt safe enough to tell the truth about how you feel in your growing up years and beyond. Accepting your own feelings seems to be key in recovering your sense of self.

[Reree-gzbg]

A lil over 2 years ago I called an eating disorder clinic and got an ED diagnosis and other mental related diagnoses (PTSD and depression at the time). I did undergo prolonged exposure therapy. I don't remember much but I do remember completing it.

Current hurdles are anxiety/depression cycle and ED thoughts (haven't engaged in behaviours in awhile). I am not a fan of labels and definitely find a lot of "recovery" programs are very label focused. That I would be "in denial" if I didn't adhere to such labels.

[sebastianortiz]

Unsurprisingly, not long after this was published we learn of Jordan Peterson therapist extraordinaire of world fame having checked himself in to a clinic for benzo withdrawal.

[kamma]

It's that there aren't any metaphysical distinctions in English culture because of the pure materialist belief system.

[jjbbabby]

Great talk, I’d love to read some papers written by Dr Ball for an essay I’m writing in the myth of mental illness. Any recommendations? Thanks! 😊

[marcodallolio]

The supposed truth or not of any model has nothing to do with it. The function of psychiatry is social control, it will embrace whatever model allows it to achieve its function

[lisablount]

It’s still sad that all they do is Medicate with no informed permission to do all this to us. The medical establishment has abandoned us effectively euthanizing us with their side effects refusing to study us to get off the pills.

[mesapsych]

I think the bigger question is "what is human?" Once we determine that, we can figure the rest out. I believe most of us are normal surviving in an abnormal culture and our brain is working the way it should in finding a balance. The results of that balance should not be identified as mental illness.

[turninginsideout]

There is absolutely no need to medicate people robbing them of the experience of being human. At first these guys seem to question the historical narrative, social/political dogmas, but then revert right back to medicating people when there is some discomfort. Most of the studies conducted are run by pharmaceuticals, and clinical trials are small, and not necessarily transferrable. As a therapist, I agree supports are needed, but we are limiting human expression based on ideas that certain things should be exempt from life, like suffering, confusion, uncertainty, and many traumas. The number one thing all humans have in common is the fear of loss. Loss, meaning love isn't available to me because of lack of worth, value, rejection, abandonment, etc. Once we solve the return to wholeness, or holism which is a spiritual, and human undertaking would wipe out this false model of "helping."

[stevekaylor]

The development of a mental + emotional dedication is Mental Health - a Cathexis!

[mathsfornineyearolds]

I don't know how many people here have undergone a 'formal' academic backgrounding in social sciences, or are aware of the canon as to what defines academic, as opposed to merely "ideas". 'Officially' we are not talking about facts, we are talking about the idea of mental health. Cambridge university published a psychological dictionary. Anyone who has read that can make a 'psychiatric diagnosis, but it will not be treated as anything more than a personal notion. The word 'psychobabble' is also described in their dictionary as signifying the language/myth used by therapist. The 'working class' mind, by observation is a very credulous thing where its prescribed authority figures are concerned. In a professional environment, if you give an opinion you are required to justify and qualify it with hard mathematical and physical facts. When researching these ideas I found a possible origin in the old testament where it is claim "you shall surely die" if you 'sleep with members of the same sex, or animals. The general idea appears to see our activities and mentality as provoking an 'internal alchemy' that in those cases provoke a pathological effect, but in the same book there is a warning (Genisis) about the effects of 'psychological imposition' and its effects on perception and the behaviour of those it is imposed on. For example "the snake shall bite at your heal". Experiment with this such as the 'Rosenthal' experiment' have revealed that to be true, at least when I carried it out. The danger here in relation to that, is if you beleive some one to be 'mentally ill', your perceptions of what ever to claimed illness is will effect the behaviour and your perceptions of the behaviour of the the thus labelled.
Observations on the political use of diagnosis in 'mental health' and other opinions help and forewarded by workers on the shop floor showed a propagandist behaviour where selected information was passed on to third parties, while any contradictory data they were in possession of, was with held. That was a significant variable in social pathology. I see the language used here continues to validate what cambridge University defined as "psychobabble". The 'schizophrenia' is psychobabble.

[orionterron]

Immediate bullshit. I've been adhd since before it was a thing. I was on Ritalin as a kid. Went off it for 20 years. At 38, when I tried to finish my degree, I was put on adderral. It changed my life positively, and I feel like NOT being treated for those 20 years cost me a great deal of my life. I'm not a "meth addict." Quite the opposite. On adderral I'm a normal human being. But for those 20 uears I was off? You'd think I was a meth addict by my behaviors.

If you want to know about adhd, talk to someone woth adhd. We live with it every day. These people just study it in a vacuum of their own agendas and biases.

[jasminkabogdanovic]

By words of this man, it aint that you learned this wrong types of behaviour pushed by your enviroment and family, its down to genetic